"Nothing else in the universe comes even halfway close to the glories of Southern football!"
Except High School Football in West Texas.
Where do you think those colleges get their players?
In 1973, I was TDY at Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, Texas. That was back when the Houston Oilers had their training camp at Angelo State. The locals lived and breathed football.
I laughed when a music promoter scheduled a concert by the group "Blood, Sweat, and Tears" on the same night as a high school football game. The football stadium was packed, and I read later that the concert didn't attract too many people.
If my memory is correct, the high school football coach had his own 30-minute TV show. And a big topic for discussion in town was whether or not you should automatically root for the Oilers, and if you were a traitor if you rooted for the Cowboys.
It's no accident that so many good football players come from Texas.
Or Friday night HS hockey in Minnesota
My former hometown berg of Burkburnett sends most of its good players to Oklahoma (Henderson...4 year All American DB at OU; Skip Hicks 2 yr All American at UCLA and a myriad of others).
One year (1961 I believe)Burkburnett was put on probation because the year before the fans from Burk came out of the stands and beat up the referees (Olney, TX) for making a bunch of bad calls (which is why Texas HS referees are the best). Burk was prohibited from playing a high school the following year...so what did the high school do? They played a 7 game Junior College Schedule. Burk went undefeated that year.